Mobility is the main topic of discussion today at the Intel Developer forum. Anand Chandrasekher, Intel's senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, gave the press a taste of what Intel will have to offer in the Mobile Internet Device (MID) and Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) device categories.

The next generation of mobile devices will be built on Intel's new Menlow platform which will be more power efficient than the company's current , a.k.a. McCaslin. The McCaslin platform uses 90 nanometer Stealey 600MHz (A100) and 800MHz (A110) processors coupled with the 945GU Express chipset and ICH7U southbridge.

Menlow, on the other hand, will use new 45 nanometer Hi-k low-power Silverthorne processors and the Poulsbo chipset. Other features included on the Menlow platform are 802.11n wireless technology, 3G and WiMAX for extended broadband coverage.

"In the first half of 2008, Intel will take a major step to deliver what these users are looking for with our first platform designed from the ground up for MIDs and UMPCs – codenamed Menlow, which will deliver 10x lower power compared to the first UMPCs in the market," said Chandrasekher.

The small Linux-powered MIDs will be small-form factor devices with 4" to 6" touch screens. Intel envisions these devices being used for mobile Internet, music/video playback and social networking (i.e. MySpace and Facebook). Canonical founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth demonstrated a prototype MID device running a specialized version of Ubuntu Linux with Chandrasekher.

UMPCs, however, will continue to feature larger screens, QWERTY keypads and will in most cases use Windows based operating systems.

In addition, Chandrasekher also displayed future phone-enabled MID using the Moorestown platform (2009/2010 launch). In keeping with Intel's strive to reduce power consumption, Moorestown will is a true system-on-chip design with CPU, graphics, video and memory controller all on a single piece of silicon.

"Moorestown, will increase battery life an order of magnitude by reducing idle power by 10x compared to Menlow," remarked Chandrasekher.

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When will they learn there really isn't a market for these things. UMPC sales been atrocious, or close to it. People don't want to pay 1000 bucks for a device that can be replaced by a cheaper smartphone, which can do nearly all these functions (plus make phone calls, therefore condensing two devices into one) for a fifth of the price, or a laptop that will do a hell of a lot more for the same price?

"I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For [Paramount] to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!" -- Movie Director Michael Bay